Overwatch PTR update for February 4 adds Heroes Pools for the first time

Overwatch is one of the best team-based multiplayer shooting-based games that are currently available in the market. The game was released in 2016 and since then it has been running strong & has a huge community base.

The game features more than 30 playable characters & they are known as Heroes. The success of Overwatch led to the announcement of Overwatch 2 at BlizzCon on November 1, 2019. Overwatch 2 will introduce a new game mode called Push.

Speaking of this new mode, In Push, it will feature a new symmetrical map type in which teams battle to take control of a robot that begins in a central location, then push it toward the enemy base. Either team may take control of the robot at any time. The team that pushes the robot furthest onto the enemy side wins the game.

Cut to now, a new PTR update for the game has gone live. Speaking of PTR update, it is PC-only and only reflects changes coming specifically to that platform. The latest patch is introducing Hero Pools for the first time, which Jeff Kaplan was talking about in his last stream.

Speaking of Hero Pools, it is similar to Map Pools, which means rather than having all heroes available for play at all times, a weekly changing list of heroes will be available. You can check the complete patch notes down below.

GENERAL UPDATES

New Feature: Hero Pools

We will be introducing Hero Pools starting in Season 21 of Competitive Play. Much like Map Pools, rather than having all heroes available for play at all times, a weekly changing list of heroes will be available. The list will include the vast majority of the hero roster, with only a few being excluded during any given week. We think this feature will help keep Competitive Play interesting, as team compositions will change more frequently during a season.

It is important to note that Hero Pools is a new feature that may not last past this initial season. Throughout the season, we will be adjusting the types of Hero Pools available. In addition, it is possible we will also adjust the frequency with which they change.

General

• The Game Mode selector in the Career Profile is now sorted more logically to make it easier to use.
• A group leader may not use the Leave as Group option while a competitive game is currently in progress.
• The initial Assemble Heroes timer for games using the Assault, Hybrid, Control, and Payload game modes has been reduced from 40 to 35 seconds.
• Mei’s Ice Wall now has a visual damaged state when under half health
• Updated the interactions between all stuns (Flashbang, Earthshatter, Freeze, Sleep, Accretion) to be more consistent.

WORKSHOP UPDATES

New Workshop Features

Custom Game Maps:

• Workshop Chamber
• Workshop Island
• Workshop Expanse

• Script Diagnostics Panel
• Subroutines

New Workshop Actions

• Start Healing Modification
• Stop Healing Modification
• Stop All Healing Modifications
• Enable Inspector Recording
• Disable Inspector Recording
• If
• Else If
• Else
• While
• End
• For Global Variable
• For Player Variable
• Call Subroutine
• Start Rule

Workshop Updates

• Action and Condition Comments
• Melee and Reload Button Options
• Added Sort Order Reevaluation Options for Create HUD Text
• The Skip and Skip If actions now accept 0 for the number of actions to skip (so they just go on to the next action)
• A Wait action is no longer required before a Loop
• Straightened Beam Effects
• Set Status/Clear Status behavior merged with gameplay stuns (e.g. Clear Status can now clear a freeze that was caused by gameplay, not just a freeze set via Workshop itself)
• Custom Game settings now support Copy-Paste

Workshop Optimizations

• Set Global Variable
• Set Player Variable
• Modify Global Variable
• Modify Player Variable
• Set Global Variable At Index
• Set Player Variable At Index
• Modify Global Variable At Index
• Modify Player Variable At Index
• Loop
• Loop If
• Abort
• Abort If
• Skip
• Skip If

BUG FIXES

General

• Killing B.O.B no longer grants score for FFA and Team Deathmatch
• Competitive Seasons are now listed in the correct order in career profile
• Replay list should no longer have invisible entries
• Fixed a bug where avoided teammates did not appear in the avoided teammate list if they were not also in the recent player list
• Fixed a bug where the Player Outline Strength gameplay option did not adjust the opacity of player outlines
• Fixed GPU temperature query on newer AMD hardware and drivers

Maps

Petra

• Fixed a bug that caused Reinhardt’s Earthshatter not to work correctly on Petra’s collapsible floor
• The breakable floor is now targetable by Reaper’s Shadow Step, Symmetra’s Teleporter, or Doomfist’s Seismic Slam

Heroes

Ashe

• Fixed a bug that could cause B.O.B’s charge to end early on stairs

Junkrat

• Fixed a bug where, occasionally, the explosion for Junkrat’s mine would appear near the top of his head instead of on the mine

Mercy

• Fixed a bug that could cause Mercy to not get a skull/hit marker on assists

Wrecking Ball

• Fixed a bug that prevented Wrecking Ball’s voice lines from playing when opened in lootboxes

Custom Game

• Fixed an issue preventing player invites when the custom game was imported via a share code
• Fixed an issue where preset slots could be overridden when saving settings from another player’s custom game
• Fixed an issue that allowed skirmishing friends to get into your custom game when the “Allow Skirmishers” option was disabled

Workshop

• Fixed an issue where Sigma’s Primary Fire was sometimes disabled when disabling Experimental Barrier via Custom Game Settings
• Fixed an issue preventing Has Status from working correctly when querying the Unkillable status
• Fixed an issue where scores in Deathmatch display incorrectly if the score is set to a high number via Workshop actions
• Fixed an issue preventing setting scores or declaring victory in Team Deathmatch from working correctly via Workshop actions
• Fixed an issue where Training Bots sometimes wouldn’t respawn in Practice Range
• Fixed an issue preventing the Sleep status from being interrupted early via Workshop actions
• Fixed an issue with the Death Spectate actions when Enable and Disable are alternated repeatedly
• Fixed an issue causing the Buff Impact sound to play twice
• Fixed an issue causing the pitch (vertical) angle to be reset when using the Teleport action
• Fixed an issue preventing Disable Built-In Game Mode Completion from working in certain modes
• Fixed an issue where effects sometimes were the wrong size and color

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